Working with vulnerable people

Yesterday me and my house-mate Keli attended another training course, this time on working with vulnerable people. It was run by The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA). We were educated on all the different forms vulnerable people can take, from young children to the elderly, and the forms of abuse that can occur. The course leader taught us ways to deal with these situations and how to talk to these people. I thought it was a really valuable session and a very worthy cause.

To find out more about NACOA, visit www.nacoa.org.uk.

Cidade De Deus

I was recommended the film Cidade De Deus (The City of God) in order to help with my Slum Tourism literature review, which I watched over the weekend. My first thought after watching it was, "How have I never seen this before?!"

The story follows two young boys growing up in the favelas of the Brazilian city, one of which becomes a 'hoodium', a drug dealer and ends up running the town, and the other struggles to pursue his dream of becoming a photographer. If you have watched the Mumbai based film Slumdog Millionaire, you may be surprised at how different the "slums" are and how broadly this term is used.

Rockettothesky

You may recognise this song from the new Daily Mail advert, it's called Grizzly Man and it's by Rockettothesky.

I think it's got a really chilling edge and the difficulty to make out the lyrics, I feel, adds to the  atmosphere in the video and makes the song appear timeless, like the it could be from anywhere and any point in time.

Jeff Bezos

I've recently finished writing a piece of work on how Amazon have used innovation to achieve competitive advantage and in the process I've fallen in love with Jeff Bezos (the founder of Amazon.com)!
He is an absolute genius and an amazing speaker!

Mamma Mia

Over Christmas I was asked to take photos of a local restaurant's new menu, the results are now being published on the eatoutdevon restaurant guides website! Here's a couple photos to wet your appetite....

CB Training Course

Yesterday I attended a course on dealing with challenging behaviour in the volunteer setting. It was run by a very interesting guy called Kevin who is the Director of the Bristol Samaritans. The course explored what forms challenging behaviour can take, a range of ways to deal with it, and ways of preventing it as a volunteer as well as an organisation.

This was a valuable program which has provided me with the skills and insight needed to deal with situations involving challenging behaviour effectively. I'd recommend to anyone!!

Slum Tourism

I'm currently writing a literature review on the subject of Slum Tourism. Looking specifically at the motivations of travellers to participate in this controversial form of tourism in a range of locations such as Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai and South Africa, and the argument whether it's form of tourism or voyeurism.